Touhou Shinreibyou (Divine Spirit Mausoleum) ~ Ten Desires (東方神霊廟 ～ Ten Desires) is the thirteenth official game of the Touhou Project. A trial version of the game was released on the web in April, and at Reitaisai 8 in May of 2011. The full game was released at Comiket 80 on August 13, 2011. [1]

Contents

Gameplay

Ten Desires is unusual in that it represents a similar kind of "soft reboot" that Mountain of Faith did, but has never been recognized as such. While the changes are not as extreme as Mountain of Faith, many of the gameplay and engine traits of Double Dealing Character come from this game, not so much Undefined Fantastic Object. In particular, the game's pacing and stage design have been changed significantly, and later games mostly bear this design.

The major additions to the basic danmaku gameplay in Ten Desires include the Divine spirits and the Trance gauge. Divine Spirits are released when enemies are killed, bosses are damaged, and at certain scripted events. There are 4 varieties of spirits: blue, gray, purple, and green. Blue spirits increase the value of point items collected at the top of the screen, and most importantly, fill up the trance gauge a little bit. Gray spirits behave like the yellow-outlined point items in Mountain of Faith, granting the maximum possible amount of points no matter where on the screen they are collected. Gray spirits also fill the trance gauge more than blue spirits do.

Lives and bombs are still gained piece by piece. Purple spirits add 1 life piece and green spirits add 1 bomb piece. Initially, the player requires 8 life pieces to gain an extra life, but this value increases by 2 or 3 for every life gained this way (8, then 10, then 12, then 15, and so on). 8 bomb pieces grants the player an additional bomb, and this amount never changes. Certain enemies drop purple and green spirits, and bosses drop 1 purple spirit and 1 green spirit after every spell card (with the exception of their final spell card).

The Trance gauge consists of 0 to 3 flames that are built up by collecting blue and gray Divine Spirits. The player begins the game with 1 flame filled, and can collect up to a max stock of 3. The player can enter Trance either by getting hit with at least 1 flame filled, or by manually activating the state when all 3 flames are filled by pressing the C button. If the player enters Trance by getting hit, they will lose a life after the Trance timer runs out. While in Trance, the player's shot is much stronger, the player is invulnerable, and divine spirits are worth more. After exiting Trance, the Trance meter will be empty.

Unlike the other games, each stage does not have to be finished in order to unlock it for Practice Mode, only attempted.

Gameplay-wise, ZUN claims that it's somewhere in between Perfect Cherry Blossom and Undefined Fantastic Object, but he wanted to give the game a different style from previous entries in the series. He also states that he wanted to have dialogue occurring during the final battle, but possibly due to system limitations settled on throw-away lines instead. He did the same thing in Fairy Wars. ZUN has kept difficulty down this time and simplified the game mechanics in order to suit a wider audience. [2]

The extra stage, which story-wise is completely separate from the main game, was meant to be a little sequel bonus, as well as give to a feeling that it could be a possible link to the next game. Kasen Ibaraki and Byakuren Hijiri were other candidates for the boss. ZUN didn't actually decide what the extra stage was going to be until he decided upon the stage title, "Raise the Flag of Rebellion".

Music

A total of 17 tracks are featured in Ten Desires: seven stage and boss themes and one for the title, ending and staff roll. An eighteenth track is the player score theme, which was taken from Fairy Wars. "Desire Dream" (デザイアドリーム), the staff roll theme, is a slower and looser version of the stage 4 theme "Desire Drive" (デザイアドライブ).

Besides these normal versions of the tracks, all the stage and boss themes (except during the battle with Toyosatomimi no Miko) also have "spirit world" versions. The normal version focuses primarily on the melody and harmony and contains relatively few background voices compared to ZUN's previous compositions. Upon entering trance mode, the music switches to the "spirit world" version. It's recorded using a lower sampling rate (22050 Hz), and focuses primarily on the rhythm and accompanying voices. Mixes have been created utilizing both soundtracks, which produces a different sound than when listening to either track on its own.

ZUN has said that his favorite song in the game is Mononobe no Futo's theme, with the stage 4 theme coming in second. For Mamizou Futatsuiwa's theme, ZUN had to work pretty hard in order to create a song that stood apart from the rest of the game (as the story does). He was happy with how the song turned out, though. He then later created an arrangement of Mamizou's theme for Hopeless Masquerade, renaming it "Futatsuiwa from Gensokyo".

Due to the cancellation of Reitaisai 8 because of the Touhoku earthquake and tsunami and subsequent moving of the event to May 8, 2011, the demo release was postponed. The trial version was released for free download on the Internet on April 16, 2011. [3] Proceeds from those who bought the demo at the postponed event were donated to charity.[4]

The full game was released August 13, 2011 at Comiket 80. A few days later, two patches were released in quick succession in order to fix bugs and a few small display issues.

ZUN had given an interview in Chara☆Mel Febri volume 9 which revealed more about the characters, music of the game and Ten Desires in general.[5]